


Coming Home

by SaraNoH



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Christmas, F/M, Family, Fluff, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-17
Updated: 2015-12-17
Packaged: 2018-05-06 10:00:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5412575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SaraNoH/pseuds/SaraNoH
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Phil brings the team to the farmhouse to celebrate Christmas with his family.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Coming Home

**Author's Note:**

> This story includes spoilers for AoS's mid-season finale, just so you're aware.

“Iowa?” Daisy questions. “Why would we go there?”

Hunter squints at the sound of the location and leans in to Bobbi. “Is that a real state or one of the fake ones you tried to convince me was an actual place?”

“It’s real,” she answers with a slight hint of exasperation.

“Is there a new Inhuman we’ve picked up?” Mack asks.

May gives Phil a knowing look before entering in the coordinates for a place only a handful of people know. “Not a new _in_ human,” she says before bringing her eyes back up to Phil. “Right?”

“Just something I need to check out,” Phil says before walking off to his office. He can hear his team whisper among themselves about what could be going on, and he can’t help but smile a little bit to himself. The grin widens when his phone buzzes in his pocket.

 **Clint** : _ETA?_

He texts back that they’ll land in the clearing in ninety minutes. Phil wishes it was sooner. He’s been looking for a break, any fleeting moment to escape, for months now. But HYDRA’s resurgence and everything with the Inhumans has kept him tied up for weeks on end. He busies himself with catching up on reports and reading briefings from around the globe, but it still doesn’t keep him occupied enough not to check his watch every few minutes. On his desk, there’s a readout of the _Zephyr_ ’s course and final destination. He watches as the icon of the plane creeps closer and closer to the red dot marking the location of the farm.

When they land, it’s in a field. May knows well enough to stay cloaked the entire time and keep the engines quiet as they touch down. The cargo ramp lowers, and the team looks expectantly at Phil, all but one not really knowing what is happening. Silently, Phil starts down the ramp and starts following the dirt road up to the farmhouse. He hears whispers behind him, but continues to ignore them because confusing his team with speculation about their impromptu stop is just too entertaining.

May walks up to his side and catches his eye. “Took you long enough to get here,” she says.

“Get in line if you want to start giving me a hard time about it.”

She gives him one of her rare smiles in return. “Do I want to ask how old they are now?”

“Like you don’t team up with Natasha to send them birthday presents every year,” he responds.

They round a bend in the road, and the trees part enough to reveal a large farmhouse, pale yellow in color with green shutters. On the porch, a man sits on the railing with his back resting against a support pole. His eyes are shut and his body looks lax, but Phil knows better. He’s about to call out in a greeting when the man’s eyes snap open and immediately focus on the incoming group. A grin spreads across his face and he shouts, “Kids, clean everything up real quick. Your other dad is home.”

Phil shakes his head at the traditional greeting. He can’t help it if his feet start moving a little faster. Clint in turn bounds down the porch steps and rushes up to im. Their mouths meet in a crushing kiss. Clint smells like smoke from the fireplace and the aftershave he only wears here. He tastes like coffee, and Phil’s senses are overloaded with how right everything feels. 

“Hey,” Clint breathes when he pulls away.

“Hey, yourself,” Phil replies. “Missed you.”

The front door swings open, and a girl in pigtails jumps down the steps and into Phil’s arms. Lila wraps her arms around his neck so tightly, Phil worries he might lose consciousness. “Hi, beautiful,” he whispers in her ear. She giggles at the greeting. Phil looks up to see Cooper standing shyly in the door. Phil smiles at him, and the boy—young man, Phil corrects himself in his mind—waves back. Phil pries his daughter from around his body with a promise that they can snuggle later and climbs the steps to fold Cooper into a hug. The young teenager hesitates at first, not wanting to look uncool in front of strangers, but after a few seconds relaxes into the embrace. “Hi, son,” Phil says.

“Hey, Dad,” Cooper returns.

Steady steps come around the corner of the wrap-around porch, and Phil couldn’t mistake their cadence for anyone else in the world. He gives Cooper one last squeeze before pulling away and turning to his right. 

Laura stands backlit by the afternoon sun. She looks tired and slightly rumpled, but she’s still gorgeous. He hurriedly crosses the distance between them and wraps his arms around her. She kisses him back just as fiercely as he kisses her, her hand steady on his chest. And that, he thinks, is what he’s missed most about Laura. Her constant, calming presence. While he and Clint go off on any number of dangerous missions, she’s always right here, serving as their anchor and tethering them back down to where they belong. He’s missed her and her effect on him so much in the last few months that his heart hurts under the touch of her hand.

“You okay?” she asks when they break apart.

“Better now,” he answers. A second later, it clicks in his head that there’s one person not outside to greet him; the one person in their family he hasn’t been able to see yet. Not in person, at least. There’s a secret folder on his cell phone chock full of pictures and videos.

“He’s asleep,” Laura tells him, clearly reading his mind. “I’d wake him up, but he takes after you in fighting sleep. If his eyes are closed, he can’t watch everyone.”

“Sorry,” Phil mutters.

“No, you’re not,” Laura replies.

“Not to break up the family moment, but what the hell is going on?” Hunter demands.

“Coulson brought us home for Christmas,” May answers before hugging Clint and tugging on one of Lila’s braids

“Is Aunt Nat here, too?” Lila asks.

May puts on a show of rolling her eyes. “You don’t have to be so obvious about who your favorite aunt is, you know.”

Lila grins before inspecting the visitors. “Are you more Avengers?”

Daisy snorts. “We’re better.”

Lila looks at them dubiously before Phil walks over to her and rests a hand on top of her head. “This is my team,” he explains. “Can they hang out with us for Christmas?”

“Will they play with me?” Lila asks.

Phil points over to where Jemma is fidgeting next to Fitz. “That’s Jemma. She’s from England. I bet if you ask really nice, she’ll help you have a real tea time.”

Lila’s eyes go wide and she opens her mouth to ask, but Laura grabs everyone’s attention. “Why don’t we do introductions inside? Where it’s warm.”

“It’s sad when you’re not the logical one in the marriage, isn’t it?” Clint asks while bumping shoulders with Phil and leading the group inside the home.

“We have to be quiet,” Lila warns. “The baby is sick.”

A knot suddenly forms in the pit of Phil’s stomach. “You didn’t tell me—“

“It’s just a cold,” Clint reassures. “Nothing like when Cooper had croup.”

“Cooper still got him sick,” Lila says and then squeaks as she runs inside out of harm’s way from her brother’s swinging arm.

Laura smacks him on the shoulder. “Knock it off,” she tells him as she shoos him inside.

Phil looks to Clint for clarification, and the other man has to hide a grin. “Kid gets his first kiss and ends up passing on his girlfriend’s cold to his baby brother.”

“Kiss?” Phil questions. “Girlfriend?” The usual blanket of guilt of being away from his family wraps up his insides. And Clint’s hand coming to land on his shoulder doesn’t take away the feeling, only causes the pain to ebb slightly.

“We knew you’d be coming home, so we saved some stuff to tell you in person. We’re not shutting you out,” Clint says softly.

“I know, I just—“

“We know,” Clint tells him, squeezing his shoulder one more time. “Hi, Bobbi,” he greets over his shoulder as they all make their way into the living room.

“Clint,” she greets with an uneasy nod.

Hunter’s head tilts to the side. “Wait a minute. You told me about a Clint bloke. Said he was an agent and you were together for a while, but he was in some weird brother-husband deal.” His eyes drift over to Phil. “You’re the other brother-husband?”

“Kids, go clean the kitchen,” Laura instructs, and then ignores them as they whine while tromping off. “Short story, because while we really don’t owe you any explanation and Phil is your boss, it’s going to be the elephant in the room while you’re here. So—I used to be at S.H.I.E.L.D. as a nurse. The three of us bonded over Clint constantly being an idiot and getting hurt. We’ve found a way to make it work for the three of us and raise our kids. Questions?”

“What about Ros?” Daisy asks. She then cringes as her mouth once again works faster than her brain.

“We’re allowed to be with other people,” Clint explains. “It’s why Bobbi and I were together for a while a few years back.”

“But some people aren’t comfortable with what we do,” Laura says before turning to focus on Bobbi. “And that’s fine.”

“And if any of you aren’t comfortable, the _Zephyr_ is still outside and can take you back to base. No hard feelings,” Phil says.

“We’re good,” Mack says, the only one without a look of surprise on his face. “We can be respectful and appreciate you letting us come into your home, especially for Christmas.”

Laura smiles. “Someone misses home-cooked meals.”

“Someone misses anyone else doing their fair share of the cooking,” Mack corrects.

Clint paces his hand on Phil’s arm. “C’mon,” he whispers. Phil’s not entirely sure where Clint is leading him, but he also doesn’t care. They make their way through the house to the stairs leading to the second floor, and Phil then realizes where they were going. The room at the end of the hall had been a playroom for Cooper and Lila. But with the addition of a third child and Cooper not really needing toys around—at least ones that weren’t on a phone—Laura had worked to transform it into a nursery.

They’d never considered having another child. Then Phil was lost in the Battle of New York, and Clint was close to joining him in the morgue. By Fury’s miracle, Phil had been brought back to life. The deeper newfound appreciation for life had translated into Laura texting Phil that she was once again pregnant.

None of them had ever really been concerned about who fathered which child, but the last time, it caused Phil some anxiety. Due to timing, it was more than likely that he had fathered the baby. Phil had managed to sneak in some of the Laura’s prenatal lab work into FitzSimmon’s lab to be analyzed. They didn’t know who it was or what it was for, and they also thankfully hadn’t found any sign of alien DNA to cause trouble for Phil’s child.

Clint pauses outside a slightly ajar door. “You ready?” he asks with a wide grin.

Not trusting what answer might fall out of his mouth, because he excels at letting worry consume him, Phil takes a deep breath and enters the small room. The only noise inside is the stuffy breathing of a baby. Nathaniel is eight weeks tomorrow, and it breaks Phil’s heart to hear his sickness. Quietly, he steps over the crib and looks in. He’s studied every single photo texted and emailed to him, but it doesn’t quite prepare him for the real thing. Nathaniel is bald, wearing a Chicago Cubs onesie, and sleeping with his limbs in every direction. “Somehow he got that from you,” Phil whispers to Clint, who smiles.

“You can hold him,” Clint encourages.

Phil shakes his head. “My hand—you’ve told the kids about my hand, right?”

“Yeah,” Clint answers. “Cooper wants to see how it works. Lila asked if she’s still allowed to paint all your fingernails.”

That causes the corner of Phil’s mouth to turn upward. “I killed Ward,” he admits. “Crushed his chest with my fake hand.”

“Good,” Clint half-grunts. “Not like he didn’t have it coming.”

“I left the hand on the alien planet with his body. Maybe some way of hiding my sins, but definitely a way to shield my actions from the kids.” He pauses to hold up the model he’s wearing at the moment. “This is an older version, still feels buggy. I don’t want it to do something I don’t want it to.”

“Then take it off.” 

The voice and the command are familiar ones, so much so that Laura’s order causes Phil’s cheeks to flush. She grins knowingly at what he’s thinking and walks in to join them at the crib. “I meant your hand, not your pants. We’ll deal with those later.” She looks down at the prosthetic and lightly runs her fingers on the outside. “You said you can take it off, right?” Phil nods and twists the prosthetic at the wrist; it comes undone, and he lays it atop the white dresser. 

“Sit down,” Clint tells him while nudging him in the direction of the rocking chair in the corner of the room. Phil’s heart warms at the sight of it and the memory of hours spent rocking his kids to sleep in that chair. Clint scoops the baby out of the crib and delivers him to Phil’s waiting arms. “Role reversal of when we brought home Cooper.”

“I remember,” Phil responds. With his one hand, he lightly traces the baby’s features—Laura’s nose, his chin, the curve of soon-to-be chubby cheeks. Nathaniel stirs in his arms, and Phil shushes him back to sleep while rocking the chair back and forth.

“Don’t worry,” Laura says. “Natasha still thinks we named him after her and not your father.”

“Or she’s nice enough to play along with it,” Phil responds.

“When have you ever used Natasha’s name in the same sentence as the word ‘nice?’” Clint questions. “You want a minute alone with him?”

Phil shakes his head. “I’ve had enough time on my own. Stay.” Clint drops down to sit on the floor at Phil’s knee, and Laura sits on the rocker’s matching foot rest. “I’m sorry I’ve missed so much.”

“It’s okay,” Clint says while reaching out for Phil’s knee. “You know the deal—as long as you come home, that’s all we care about it.”

Laura nods. “So, welcome home.”


End file.
